MAIL DELIVERED TO YOUR HOME? WHAT'S NEXT?

Marla Donato, Tribune Staff WriterCHICAGO TRIBUNE

It didn't seem like such a radical idea at the time.

All Cecelia and Dale Bell wanted was to have their mail delivered to their house. But one week after the Bells moved from Valparaiso, Ind., to their home on Miller Street, they became the scandal of the town.

The Bells had dared to put up a mailbox up at the end of their drive.

They were told to take it down.

That's because the Bells live in the small town of Beecher (pop. 2,032), about 40 miles south of Chicago. And in Beecher-until those upstart Bells moved in-there was only one way to get your mail: You went down to the local post office and picked it up in person. There you said hello to a half-dozen other folks, and you caught up on the local gossip.

Hardly anybody bothered to question this downright friendly situation until all those new people started moving in. And that has set up a not-unusual conflict for growing rural areas-between the newcomers who expect more city services and the old-timers who are used to the old ways.

The old-timers like the post office setup just the way it is. Since just about everybody had to stop in at least once a day, the post office has long been the town's de facto social center. Between the hours of 9 and 11 a.m., it resembles a honeycomb, with people swarming about their mailboxes.

"Some people even stop by three and four times a day, just to see what's going on," said Ray Tanner, whose late wife served as the local postmaster until a few years ago.

Back then, the Tanner front porch used to serve as a second post office for residents who were expecting something really important but couldn't make it to the actual post office on time. Tanner said his wife would bring home that urgent mail and leave it in a box on the front banister.

That's fine, said Dale Bell, if "you don't have anything else to do all day."

"A lot of these people are farmers and so they make a morning of it, but for everyone else, it's a real inconvenience."

Beecher is not the only town where people have to go to the post office to pick up their mail. There are currently 44 federally designated "rural territories" in Cook, Du Page and Will Counties, including Warrenville, Braidwood and Peotone.

There, you can't have the mail delivered to your home if you live within a quarter-mile of the post office.

But postal officials say Beecher is the only place where, under a 1988 ordinance, nobody can have a mailbox-even those who would qualify under postal service rules.

That's because local officials decided they don't want a "bunch of mailboxes cluttering up the streets, looking ugly and making it hard to snowplow," Village President Landis Wehling said.

Other residents say the ordinance was passed to help preserve the town's rural character, a major concern for many in eastern Will County. Around here, the townsfolk don't mind if you move in; just don't upset anything.

This attitude is being tested as work progresses on new subdivisions in Beecher and as more people move in and demand services that they took for granted where they used to live.

"When you move into a new home, you usually don't think to ask something as stupid as `Do you get your mail delivered to your house?' " Bell said.

Invariably, in towns experiencing similar growth, the outcome has been the same. As the new, more urbane folks with 9-to-5 office schedules come to outnumber the agriculturally based old-timers, the towns become more suburban.

"Some growth is natural," said Wehling. "I think the people who are from here don't mind the growth as much. But with the new people moving in, they all want to be the last to move in."

And then they want to change things. But Beecher refuses to give in on the mail.

A new resident might find picking up the mail quaint at first. "But then it starts to be just more stuff you've got to do every day," said Jeff Witkowski, a five-year resident who stopped in the post office to pay his yearly $7.50 mailbox rent.

Maria Hensen, a homemaker and the mother of a toddler and an infant, moved to Beecher two years ago from Dolton.

She usually doesn't mind driving in to pick up the mail. "But on some days, it's hard to have to bundle up two kids, especially in the winter," she added.

Wehling said that a few years back the town considered applying for home delivery outside the quarter-mile limit. But the Postal Service wouldn't deliver the mail to the porch, only to a roadside mailbox-which would have led to that nasty "mailbox clutter" problem.

Clutter or not, the Bells considered taking their case to court, until a compromise was struck.

A community "cluster mailbox" was put up at one end of Miller Street. Another one was added for the new senior citizens housing project across town. More cluster boxes are expected to go up to accommodate the people moving into the new housing developments.

The post office, formerly open only during the day, also made another concession by opening the lobby around the clock.

The new cluster boxes don't seem to bother many of the longtime residents, because in a town where a 20-year-old business still is considered new, who needs to know what's going on with the newcomers anyway?

And while some may still grumble, many don't seem to mind making that daily trip downtown.

"How else are you going to find out what's going on?" said one local hurrying out the door with a handful of letters and newspapers.